Rocketing bureaucracy

They call it “Rocket Docket,” but it’s moving at the pace of … well, government.

More than nine months after Gov. Eliot Spitzer first announced changes to the state’s workers’ compensation system, one of the central tenets of his improvements is still months away from approval.

Rocket Docket referred to the streamlining of worker’s compensation disputes … that is, when an insurance company or an employer declines to pay benefits to an injured worker. Today, when these disputes go to the state Worker’s Compensation board, it often takes more than 200 days to resolve them. Rocket Docket was to bring the time limit down to 90 days, mainly by requiring parties to come more prepared for the hearing.

Where is Rocket Docket now? According to the Workers’ Compensation Board, the proposed regulations will be handed to the Government Office of Regulatory Reform in a few weeks. GORR, as it is known, will then have a long comment period. After GORR makes its recommendations, it gets sent back to the Compensation Board, which will have another, 45-day comment period. At some point the board votes on it … perhaps in May or June of next year.

Board spokesman Jim Smith noted that a lot of work on Rocket Docket had been taking place behind the scenes during the past few months.

“Reform is a top priority here,” he said. “This one is a big part of it.”